Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
